


Homoerotic Pumpkin Carving

by TheatricArcana



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Cultural Differences, Halloween, IT'S NOT PORN FOR ONCE, It's still shadowgast tho, M/M, The rest of TM9 are there but mentioned in passing mainly, vaguely homoerotic guided pumpkin carving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheatricArcana/pseuds/TheatricArcana
Summary: "Uh… I'm…" Essek trailed off with a nervous laugh, because what was he supposed to say? Essek was pretty sure it would be considered rude if he said 'There is nothing you can offer me that would make me stick my hand inside one of those disgusting things', but he didn't know how to politely convey that response.Before Essek could try, though, Jester was clearing space at the table for him and placing a strange orange squash in said space.The space she had cleared for him was right next to Caleb.Maybe there was something that could get Essek to stick his hand inside one, after all.(Essek is invited over while The Mighty Nein is carving pumpkins. He's persuaded to join despite having never seen or heard of a pumpkin before, and Caleb teaches him how to carve one. They're gay about it.)
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 17
Kudos: 163





	Homoerotic Pumpkin Carving

**Author's Note:**

> There was a distinct lack of Halloween fics,,, I needed to fill the void,,,,,
> 
> I'm not sure if Halloween/Hallows eve is actually a thing within the world of Critical Role, or if there's some sort of equal equivalent of Halloween with a different name made specifically for the world of CR, so I'm just making shit up in this.
> 
> Also, just for clarification: Halloween is not celebrated within Xhorhas, and squash doesn't grow there, which is why Essek doesn't know what a pumpkin is and only has a vague idea of what squash should look like.
> 
> I hope you guys like this one <3

As Essek stepped into the residence of The Mighty Nein, he expected something weird. From strange and cacophonous music to cursed magical artifacts that they needed Essek's help understanding, there was always something nonstandard and odd going on within the Xhorhaus.

This was probably the strangest thing that Essek had witnessed, though.

There were a few beat up blankets spread across the countertop, where Essek knew they usually sat and shared meals. There was no food visible on the table right now though- or at least Essek  _ hoped  _ it wasn't supposed to be food. The large, orange objects looked incredibly unappetizing. Perhaps they were some sort of squash, although Essek had never seen squash that looked like this. He had certainly never seen squash this large at least, the largest being in front of an empty seat that he could only assume had been Jester's before she had gotten up to let him in. The strange orange squash was larger than Jester's torso, and Essek was fairly certain he wouldn't have been able to lift it, let alone do… whatever Jester was doing to it.

Essek took a quick glance down the table, and caught sight of Caleb, who was also taking part in whatever strange ritual was happening currently. Essek watched as Caleb reached into a hole that had been cut on the top of the orange squash, and Essek felt his curiosity pique a little when it was clear Caleb was attempting to fish something out from the inside.

Caleb glanced up and smiled warmly at Essek- then pulled his hand out of the squash and dumped an absolutely disgusting looking mass of stringy, slimy, fibrous orange pulp onto the table.

"Am I… interrupting something?" Essek asked weakly, and Jester laughed.

"Of course not, we're just carving Jack-o-lanterns! Did you want to join us?" Jester was obviously excited about the possibility of Essek joining in, but Essek wasn't so sure he wanted to partake in… whatever this was.

"Um… What is the purpose of this activity, if you don't mind me asking?"

Everyone seated at the table now seemed to be looking at Essek with puzzled expressions, and Essek felt like he was missing something. He hated the way it felt when he was the only one in the room who  _ didn't  _ understand something. Usually it was the opposite.

"You empty out the‐" At this point, Jester said a strange, foreign word that Essek didn't quite catch. He was fairly certain it started with a P, but he wasn't positive. Essek politely let her continue without interrupting, though. "-and carve a scary face into it, and then you can put a candle or little lights inside to light up the face and you put it outside your house!" Jester explained, cheerfully, although her explanation didn't leave Essek feeling any less confused.

"It's a tradition for a holiday in the Empire and Nicodranas." Caleb spoke up from the table, picking up on Essek's obvious confusion, and Essek's shoulders relaxed a little at the sound of Caleb's voice. He was grateful to be listening to someone he could actually understand. Essek liked Jester dearly, but she was not good at explaining things in ways Essek understood. "People used to carve demonic faces into pumpkins as an attempt to scare off evil spirits that came from the open fields on Hallows Eve. Overtime as civilization within the empire developed and protective walls were built, it became less about protection from spirits and more about simply making decorations for Hallows Eve."

Essek nodded. Caleb's explanation was a lot more palatable than Jester's, but still left some questions unanswered.

"We don't celebrate Hallow's Eve where I'm from, either." Caduceus grinned, although he was also scooping strange pulp from the inside of a squash, so he was clearly taking part in the tradition despite not celebrating the holiday. "This is fun, though. You really wanna get in on this, trust me."

"Uh… I'm…" Essek trailed off with a nervous laugh, because what was he supposed to say? Essek was pretty sure it would be considered rude if he said  _ 'There is nothing you can offer me that would make me stick my hand inside one of those disgusting things' _ , but he didn't know how to politely convey that response. 

Before Essek could try, though, Jester was clearing space at the table for him and placing a strange orange squash in said space.

The space she had cleared for him was right next to Caleb.

Maybe there  _ was  _ something that could get Essek to stick his hand inside one, after all.

Against better judgement, Essek reluctantly allowed himself to be seated right next to Caleb. Though he did scoot his chair a respectful few inches away from Caleb's chair, so that it wasn't  _ right _ up against Caleb, where Jester had originally placed it. Jester didn't linger like Essek had expected her too, instead she patted him on the shoulder (with a thankfully  _ clean _ hand) and said "I'll let Caleb show you how to do it!"

With that, Jester was running back to her massive orange squash and resuming her carving.

Essek swallowed his nerves as best he could and turned to Caleb, who looked a little flustered himself. Essek tried for a friendly smile. "Well, I suppose every student becomes the teacher at some point?" 

Caleb chuckled at that, which relieved some of the tension that had come to rest on Essek's shoulders. When he first sat down, he had a horrible mental image of himself fumbling over every word he tried to say to Caleb and being incredibly awkward, but nothing like that seemed to be happening. Essek, as always, was pleasantly surprised by the fact that making conversation with Caleb, even when they weren't studying, was easy and painless.

" _ Ja,  _ I suppose so." Caleb held out a large kitchen knife to Essek that he had previously been using himself. "Here, I can- I'll show you how to get it started."

Essek took the knife from Caleb's hand, and he tried not to focus on the fact that the handle was still warm from Caleb holding it. He _definitely_ didn't think about how he was jealous of the knife for getting to be held by Caleb, while the closest he could get to Caleb was the seat next to him, because that would also be ridiculous- being _jealous_ of a _knife._ Essek was smarter than that.

"You're going to want to cut the stem out of the  _ pumpkin _ first." Caleb told him, using the same unfamiliar word that Jester had used earlier, the one that started with a P.

" _ Pumpkin... _ ?" Essek repeated the strange word slowly, and he could tell he was mangling the pronunciation before Caleb had even reacted.

Luckily, Caleb only let out a small huff of laughter before repeating the word, slower this time, so that Essek could really hear all the sounds that went into the word, but not so slow that it felt patronizing.

"Pumpkin?" Essek did his best to copy Caleb. 

Caleb smiled this time, and Essek pointedly ignored the butterflies in his stomach that had appeared upon seeing Caleb's smile. " _ Ja,  _ that's it."

There was a missed beat where all Essek did was return Caleb's fond smile, and then Essek's eyes met Caleb's and Essek realized just how close they were to each other, shoulders almost touching, close enough for Essek to reach out and-

Essek did his best to cut off his own trail of thought, feeling his face heat up at the images his own mind supplied him. He abruptly cleared his throat and turned back towards the pumpkin, using it as a distraction. 

"So, how do I cut the stem out, then?" Essek asked, voice an octave or two higher than normal.

Essek hadn't even realized how still Caleb had been until Caleb was sputtering back into motion, stumbling over his words slightly as he turned his attention back towards the pumpkin. "Um, y-you- ah- you cut into the pumpkin a couple inches away from the stem- over a little more…  _ Ja,  _ there is fine-"

It was surprisingly easy for Essek to follow Caleb's directions. Caleb was a better teacher than Essek was expecting, though he supposed now that he thought about it, it wasn't that surprising. Caleb was the only Wizard within The Mighty Nein, after all. Essek could only imagine that Caleb had spent some time in the past explaining advanced arcane concepts to them in terms that were simple enough for the average person to understand.

Eventually, Essek was lifting the severed stem up and away from the pumpkin, and a mess of stringy pulp and seeds came with it. Essek wrinkled his nose at the sight, and he set it down as quickly as possible, hoping not to get any of the slimy pulp on his clothes.

"Cleaning out the pumpkin is pretty gross." Caleb chuckled. "I can ah- do this next part for you if-"

Caleb didn't get to finish before others were interrupting with protests.

"What? No! I wanted to see Essek do it himself!" Beau complained loudly, and Jester jumped in right behind.

"It's so much fun, Essek! It's not gross at all!" As if it helped her point in any way, Jester grabbed fistfuls of the pulp and squeezed, and Essek made a little noise of disgust at the sight. Jester, however, looked highly entertained.

At this point, a thought occurred to Essek.

"Wait, to be clear- All I need to do right now is remove the ah… the…  _ innards _ ?"

"The guts." Beau corrected, and Essek genuinely couldn't tell if she was messing with him or not. However, when Essek glanced towards Caleb questioningly, Caleb nodded in confirmation that that was, in fact, correct.

"All I need to do is remove the…  _ guts _ , then?" Essek questioned once more, and was met with nods around the table, which put Essek's plan solidly into place.

A quick wave of his hand had the slimy and stringy  _ guts  _ levitating up out of the pumpkin, and he neatly deposited them into a pile on the table. He smirked and raised an eyebrow at Beau, who groaned in disappointment and slumped back in her chair. 

"That takes, like,  _ all _ the fun out of it…" Beau muttered, but Essek didn't justify it with a response. He was fairly confident there wasn't much fun to be had in sticking his hands into gross, slimy pulp. Beau, however, would have had a field day watching him try and cope with the disgusting textures. Essek knew he had "won", so to speak, by avoiding giving Beau the joy of watching him touch pumpkin guts.

Essek turned back towards Caleb with a grin still on his face, which Caleb returned as he looked approvingly at Essek's pile of pumpkin guts. "That is a clever way of doing it."

There was a resurgence of butterflies in Essek's stomach when he received Caleb's approval, which was embarrassing. He was the  _ Shadowhand. _ He didn't  _ need _ assurance or approval from anyone else, certainly not from a human foreigner whose arms were covered in pumpkin guts.

It was still nice to have, though.

"What can I say? Dunamancy has many applications." Essek looked back at his pumpkin, at a bit of a loss now that he had so easily evaded the part he was dreading most. "So ah… What do I do next?"

"This is when you carve the face into it."

Essek found himself dreading this part now as well. He wasn't much of an artist, and carving a face seemed like it would require a lot of talent and knowledge. Essek liked to think he had both of those things as well, but this was a little out of his preferred area of study.

"Say I'm not much of a carver?" Essek laughed, slightly nervous that they actually expected him to be able to do this.

"Oh, perhaps I should clarify. It's rather simple, really-" Emphasizing his point, Caleb grabbed one of his finished pumpkins and turned it, so that Essek could see the other side.

Essek couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of him at the sight of the delightfully strange face that was cut out of the pumpkin. It was carved out of simple shapes, but it did indeed look like a cartoonish face, much like a child's drawing might portray. It was funny, plain and simple. It wasn't even intimidating enough to even scare off a child, let alone evil spirits, despite what Caleb claimed they had previously been used for.

Caleb muttered a small incantation, and suddenly there was light emanating from the inside of the pumpkin. It illuminated the face and cast a shadow onto the table, and Essek found himself laughing at the pumpkin once more.

Caleb looked a little red. "I will admit, this is not my finest."

Essek quickly schooled his laughter, although he couldn't suppress his grins. "Well, I've never seen your finest, however I certainly find this entertaining."

"I'll show you how to do it." Caleb nodded back towards Essek's pumpkin, and Essek returned his attention to it as well.

Caleb showed him how to plan the face, even giving Essek some plain chalk so that Essek could map out the details before he started carving. He participated in friendly conversation amongst the group as he took his time drawing out the face, trying to make sure everything was perfectly symmetrical. He had been doing so for some time when Caleb's hand gently came to rest on his shoulder.

"It doesn't need to be perfect." Caleb said, tone lightly teasing.

Essek looked at the uneven chalk lines on the pumpkin, the one eye that's just a few centimeters higher than the other, the side of the mouth that doesn't come up quite as high as the other, and he knows he could make it better if he kept working. "It could be, though."

"I'm sure you  _ could _ make it perfect, but I think it's good the way it is."

Essek sighs, one last glance at the last remaining uneven lines before he admits defeat and reluctantly sets the chalk down. If it was up to him, he probably would have spent hours trying to even out the face and make it perfectly symmetrical. He's not working on the pumpkin alone though, and he finds Caleb's reassurance is all he needs to be satisfied. He may not like it, but Caleb does. Essek cares more about that than any other factor.

_ Gods _ , Essek was in deep.

At Caleb's direction, Essek picks up a small serrated blade and begins to make his first cuts into the shell of the pumpkin. It's difficult, getting the blade to move through the thick shell, and Essek quickly finds the blade becoming stuck in the pumpkin. Caleb, who had been observing closely, was quick to notice.

"Here- make sure it's all the way in." Caleb tells him, before bracing a hand against the back of Essek's pumpkin.

Then, for a perfect moment, Caleb places his other hand over Essek's. 

Essek's breath stutters, his heart pounding in his chest at the feeling of Caleb's rough, callused hands over his own. Essek is painfully aware of how easy it would be to let go of the knife and intertwine his fingers with Caleb's, which is a thought so embarrassing on its own that it makes Essek's face flush. Luckily, Caleb doesn't seem to take notice.

When Caleb pushes hard against Essek's hand, the knife he had been holding abruptly sinks in to the hilt, and Essek gets the sense that he hadn't actually managed to penetrate all the way through the rind of the pumpkin until now. He really hadn't been anticipating how hard the pumpkin would be, especially when he saw Jester and Yasha cutting away with such ease, but he knew now that it was simply because they must have been much stronger than him.

Essek expects Caleb to pull his hand away, but he doesn't, only repositions it, and Essek is fairly certain his heart is going to beat out of his chest.

"It's a sawing motion, like this-" Caleb guides Essek's hands in the correct motion, cutting along one of the chalk lines Essek had drawn. Essek is desperately trying to pay attention, but Caleb's hand is firm yet gentle, warm, and incredibly distracting. He misses a beat before his brain catches up and he actually begins to follow Caleb's motions to get a feel for it himself. Caleb, devastatingly, lets go of his hand when he starts to get the hang of it.

The rest of his pumpkin carving experience is tragically void of any more tender touches from Caleb, but it's still a delightful process. Jester begins to tell stories from their last adventure, and occasionally the rest of the group jumps in with details. It's a nice distraction towards the end of his carving. The sawing motions through the hard rind of the pumpkin are more taxing the longer he does it, and his hand is starting to cramp from holding the knife for so long. It's worth it for the end product, though.

Essek carves out the last section of the face and punches it through, and Caleb hums approvingly. Caleb was right- Essek can barely tell that it's uneven now that everything is carved out. It still looks like a child did it, due to the simple shapes used to create the face, but it's just as amusing as Caleb's pumpkin.

Essek finds himself even further amused when a glow appears from within the pumpkin, illuminating it from the inside out. Caleb seemed to have shifted some of his dancing lights from within his own pumpkin to Essek's, and the effect is delightful. Essek laughed at the face he had carved in the pumpkin. He was well aware of how childish this craft was now that he was looking at the finished product, but it didn't matter because he was having  _ fun _ , something Essek didn't have a lot of when he was around anyone else.

"Usually candles are used, but this is just an example." Caleb explained, and Essek nodded politely.

"Oh! You can sprinkle cinnamon on the lid of the pumpkin, then when you put the candle inside, it'll smell like pumpkin pie! We do it all the time in Nicodranas!" Jester said, excitedly, before hopping out of her chair. "I'm going to go get some, I just finished mine too!"

Jester runs out of the room, but then runs back in less than a few seconds after leaving to add on "And don't look at my pumpkin, it's a surprise!"

There's a moment of silence that Essek cringes at himself for not being able to fill before Beau speaks up. "I'm thinking there's gonna be at least two or three dicks hidden in whatever she's carving."

"Are you joking? That pumpkin is  _ massive. _ She's fitting five at  _ least _ ." Fjord adds on, and Essek laughs with the rest of the party despite himself. Jester's fascination with subtle phallic imagery was baffling, but quite entertaining.

Eventually, after some suspicious sounds of someone rummaging around in the kitchen that makes Caduceus' ears twitch, Jester came running back into the room with a jar of cinnamon and a wide variety of candles. Essek could tell that not all of them were plain candles, and when Jester dumped the candles in front of him to let him choose some, he subtly removed any that could be used as spell components and slid them towards Caleb. Caleb said nothing, but Essek could tell from the look in his eyes that he was grateful.

Jester grabbed a large handful of candles out of the pile, which made sense, as she had a lot of pumpkin to light up. Caleb assisted with lighting the candles with the help of a simple cantrip, pointedly not looking at Jester's pumpkin at her insistence. Jester was grinning wide as she placed all the candles inside the pumpkin and put the top on. Essek found himself eager to see what was on her pumpkin after all the buildup, and he turned his attention fully towards her, waiting respectfully for the reveal. 

With a flourish and a " _ Ta-da!" _ Jester turns the pumpkin around so the rest of the table can see. Essek's jaw immediately drops.

Essek quickly surveys the rest of the table, and he's relieved to find their reactions are similar to his own. Upon seeing Jester's elaborate creation, he was afraid that his pumpkin carving was incredibly poorly done, but everyone else's pumpkins looked closer to his than to Jester's. It felt much better to know that his pumpkin was not the only one that Jester had left in the dust.

Jester's pumpkin is detailed, and depicts what Essek would venture to call a work of art. It was clearly a pirate ship, sailing on turbulent, swirling waves. As opposed to a skull and crossbones on the flag however, there is a smiley face with tusks, which Essek doesn't recognize. There are impossibly small details, and Essek is in awe at how much effort and talent must have gone into it. Essek had struggled carving basic shapes, meanwhile Jester had whipped up a masterpiece.

"I did this a  _ lot  _ when I was a kid. Mama always loved to have my carvings around the Lavish Chateau during Hallows Eve!" Jester grinned as she presented her work. Everyone around the room jumped in to compliment her pumpkin at this point, and Essek did as well. It was truly splendid, after all.

There was a much less grand reveal of everyone else's pumpkins, but they insisted Essek present his as well, and a few of them even complimented his work. Essek did not find their praise even half as fulfilling as Caleb's, but he thanked them politely regardless.

Jester arranged the pumpkins outside at night time, which was just another strange and fascinating decoration to light up the Xhorhaus. The pumpkins were visible from the street, and hilariously off putting to the people who walked by. Essek found a strange humor in the fact that he, the  _ Shadowhand _ , had carved one of them. No one else in Rosohna would ever know or suspect that he was the one who assisted in creating such silly, pointless decorations, but he did, and that knowledge was oddly delightful. It was a secret that only he and The Mighty Nein would know. He smiled at the thought.

As he made the journey back to his own residence that night, he took one last look at the pumpkins from the street.

Jester had placed his pumpkin right next to Caleb's.

**Author's Note:**

> I almost want to make a companion fic about the rest of TM9 watching Caleb and Essek be embarrassing gay disasters. The entire time I could so clearly picture Beau and Jester sharing those knowing looks every time Caleb and Essek started getting gay again LOL


End file.
